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Nonlinear incentives and mortgage officers’ decisions

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  • Tzioumis, Konstantinos
  • Gee, Matthew

Abstract

In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, banks should ensure that their incentive compensation policies appropriately balance long-term risk with short-term rewards. Using daily output data from mortgage officers in a US commercial bank, we test the notion that nonlinear contracts create time-varying incentives for the employees and impose costs on the firm. We provide empirical evidence that mortgage officers greatly increase their output toward the end of each month, when the minimum monthly quota is assessed. This occurs through a combination of reducing the processing time and approving some marginal applications. We also find that mortgages originated on the last working day of the month have a higher likelihood of delinquency.

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  • Tzioumis, Konstantinos & Gee, Matthew, 2013. "Nonlinear incentives and mortgage officers’ decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 436-453.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:107:y:2013:i:2:p:436-453
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2012.08.014
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    2. Acharya, Viral & Litov, Lubomir P. & Sepe, Simone M., 2014. "Seeking Alpha, Taking Risk: Evidence from Non-executive Pay in U.S. Bank Holding Companies," Working Papers 13-18, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    3. Larry D. Wall, 2020. "Is stricter regulation of incentive compensation the missing piece?," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(1), pages 82-94, March.
    4. Agarwal, Sumit & Ben-David, Itzhak, 2018. "Loan prospecting and the loss of soft information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(3), pages 608-628.
    5. SHEN, Yu & SHE, Kaiwen, 2024. "Loan origination and risk underpricing: The role of lending incentives," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PB).
    6. Efing, Matthias & Hau, Harald & Kampkötter, Patrick & Steinbrecher, Johannes, 2015. "Incentive pay and bank risk-taking: Evidence from Austrian, German, and Swiss banks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 123-140.
    7. Jun Honda & Roman Inderst, 2017. "Nonlinear incentives and advisor bias," Working Papers 2017-26, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    8. Cai, Xiqian & Jiang, Wei & Song, Hong & Xie, Huihua, 2022. "Pay for performance schemes and manufacturing worker productivity: Evidence from a kinked design in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    9. Inderst, Roman, 2015. "Regulating commissions in markets with advice," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 137-141.
    10. Haelim Anderson & Michael Carabello & Troy Kravitz, 2022. "Retrospective on Twenty Years of the FDIC-JFSR Bank Research Conference," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-41, February.
    11. Richard B. Freeman & Wei Huang & Teng Li, 2019. "Non-linear Incentives, Worker Productivity, and Firm Profits: Evidence from a Quasi-experiment," NBER Working Papers 25507, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Bin Wei & Feng Zhao, 2022. "Racial Disparities in Mortgage Lending: New Evidence Based on Processing Time," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2022-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    13. James Wang, 2020. "Screening soft information: evidence from loan officers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(4), pages 1287-1322, December.
    14. Johannes Steinbrecher, 2016. "Corporate Governance und Unternehmenserfolg - Eine empirische Analyse des Zusammenhangs zwischen den Führungs-, Kontroll- und Anreizstrukturen und der Geschäftsentwicklung deutscher Banken," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 64.
    15. Cortés, Kristle & Duchin, Ran & Sosyura, Denis, 2016. "Clouded judgment: The role of sentiment in credit origination," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 392-413.
    16. Duc Duy Nguyen & Steven Ongena & Shusen Qi & Vathunyoo Sila, 2022. "Climate Change Risk and the Cost of Mortgage Credit [Does climate change affect real estate prices? Only if you believe in it]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1509-1549.
    17. Duan, Tinghua & Li, Frank Weikai, 2024. "Climate change concerns and mortgage lending," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    18. Samuel Kruger & Gonzalo Maturana, 2021. "Collateral Misreporting in the Residential Mortgage-Backed Security Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2729-2750, May.
    19. Bushman, Robert & Gao, Janet & Martin, Xiumin & Pacelli, Joseph, 2021. "The influence of loan officers on loan contract design and performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2).
    20. Michele Benvenuti & Luca Casolaro & Silvia Del Prete & Paolo Emilio Mistrulli, 2017. "The Right to Decide and the Effective Control Over Small Business Lending Decisions: A Look into Loan Officers’ Real Authority," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 46(2), pages 237-268, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nonlinear incentives; Quotas;

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

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